BAD books that made you bitter.

[underground]

list yours here. and the whys (why it was bad, why it made you bitter, why you continued to read despite the fact, etc., etc.)

- i was a non-blonde cheerleader by kieran scott
this is a junior chick-lit which i picked up just for the hell of it. it is surprisingly shallow and predictable even for a junior chick-lit. the author uses all cliches ever invented--not fitting in, a new best friend, a gorgeous boy linked to an archenemy, etc.--and the protagonist tries to survive the whole ordeal, but really, who cares about hair color?

- embraced by the light by betty j. eadie
this is supposedly the story of someone who died and came back to life. it's a best-seller some years ago, but for a best-seller it surprisingly lacks some substance (hahaha). eadie is not the brightest person ever, which shows in her writing. this book reminds me of that book written by some teenager about her sad, sad experience of meeting a creepy pedophile thanks to aol chatroom. (on an unrelated note, that's pretty stupid of her to begin with.)

grr.

[Idril]

Oh, that's easy...Middlemarch by George Eliot. I was so excited about it because I love Victorian Literature but there was absolutely no energy in this novel. The characters were completely lifeless and the pace was excrutiatingly slow. I hate not finishing a book I've started though, even if it kills me, I have to finish it, it's a matter of pride. I hated that book so much that when I finished it, I burned it. We were at my parents' house at the time, roasting marshmallows and making s'mores and my Mom was quite horrified at the idea of burning books but I pointed out that I wasn't burning it to censor or edit it, it was an offering to the gods of patience and suffering so it was ok.

Another book that made me bitter but for different reasons was Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It was an almost 1000 page book, it was incredibly complicated and hard to follow in some places and used lots of big words that I had to look up in the dictionary and I loved every minute of it, but as I got closer to the end I got this horrible feeling that there wasn't enough time to wrap anything up and sure enough, the books just ends! :( After all that work and all that emotional investment, it just ends with no resolution to any of the many story threads weaved throughout the book. I read a review of it that said that the end is really the beginning and you should reread the beginning after finishing to find out what happened but that didn't really clear anything up for me. Maybe I'm just too daft to figure it out but I was just as confused after I reread the first few chapters again than I was before. :confused: When I was reading it, I was thinking it was one of the greatest books ever written and by the end I was just...bitter.

[IrishCanadian]

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I don't fully agree with her philosophys, but i do fully respect them. She simply should never have written a book. The characters were one dimensional, the plot repeated itself, and narrative was as boring as the archetecture described therein.

The other one for me is Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I am a huge fan of classical lit. I love it! But this one seemed to have nothing but narrative that rolled on into eternity. Poohpooh.

Both these books I was forced to swallow my time and read for school.

[Ryduce]

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I don't fully agree with her philosophys, but i do fully respect them. She simply should never have written a book. The characters were one dimensional, the plot repeated itself, and narrative was as boring as the archetecture described therein.

The other one for me is Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I am a huge fan of classical lit. I love it! But this one seemed to have nothing but narrative that rolled on into eternity. Poohpooh.

Both these books I was forced to swallow my time and read for school.


I got through 300 pages of The Fountainhead and considered suicide.I can't believe I wasted 300 pages of my reading career on this.I am seriously a better writer than Ayn Rand,and I'm freaking terrible.

[Wirhe]

Matt in Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time." Read every book and I have to say that the changes Jordan is pushing on him, my favorite character, are simply too fat for me to swallow. Matt is supposed to be one of those carousing, worry-free characters that would never even consider marriage or mixing up with some serious trouble. Guess what happens? You knew it: the author does exactly the opposite, which would be fine EXCEPT that he also forces on him some of his own beliefs of marriage. In turn, this just keeps pissing me off, screwing with otherwise great character among overchivalrious lot.

[Scheherazade]

On The Road by Kerouack.

[Chinaski]

Ayn Rand probably would have agreed with the suicide - you weak slave! I think she is a hateful waste of space, and I would have been very surprised to hear that she had written anything of merit.

[Dickensian]

The first book I ever hated was "Saturday" by Ian McEwan. It was horrible, in my opinion. The narrative just dragged on and nothing was ever fulfilled by it, McEwan never got his point out to me (maybe that's a fault of my own). It was just a waste of time considering I could have spent it reading a worthwhile book instead. I was also an idiot for reading McEwan's "Atonement" after that. The plot seemed interesting enough and you get the feel that everything will come into place at the end of the book (its like that with "Saturday", too) but the book never proves to be worth the trouble it was reading. I don't know what the judges were thinking giving "Atonement" the Booker Prize...

[papayahed]

On The Road by Kerouack.

:goof: nooooooooooooooo!!

For different reasons I'd have to say "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee" I've had the book for years and can only get through a few pages at a time before I get incredible po'd.

oh, and The Princess Bride. Blech.

[Virgil]

On The Road by Kerouack.
Really. I'm surprised. I thought it was a fun read.

[kilted exile]

More of a book being ruined, than a problem with the book itself.....

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest - Was assigned reading for my class when I was 16. One day after we started reading it the teacher told us exactly what happened in the story, completely ruining any desire I may have had to read it. She then proceeded to tell me what my opinion should be of the characters in the book, and refused to read my essay suggesting that MacMurphy was in fact in it for himself throughout the entire novel (well until the end of course).

[WaxDoll]

More of a book being ruined, than a problem with the book itself.....

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest - Was assigned reading for my class when I was 16. One day after we started reading it the teacher told us exactly what happened in the story, completely ruining any desire I may have had to read it. She then proceeded to tell me what my opinion should be of the characters in the book, and refused to read my essay suggesting that MacMurphy was in fact in it for himself throughout the entire novel (well until the end of course).

Wow... what a great teacher. She's all for individuality, huh?

[Scheherazade]

:goof: nooooooooooooooo!!
Really. I'm surprised. I thought it was a fun read.More on my thoughts on On the Road is here (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4360&highlight=road) but, in short, I thought it was a self indulging book. I am not sure why memoirs of drunken escapades of a bunch of guys who refuse to grow up should be considered a 'must-read' book. I read it after so many recommendations that my disappointment was x100 by the time I finished it.

[bootyqueen]

A Million Little Pieces really ticked me off... I read it before the 'scandal' broke, and I have to say, I really did wonder whether or not this all happened to him, however, I know that Oprah endorsed the book, and I figured that her book club is under heavy scrutiny, so I thought I was just being cynical. The book was entertaining, but I found his writing style frustrating and when I was done the book I thought "Thank God that's over!"